Abstract for: Revealing the core system engine of the experience of anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in university students across the world. Research findings showed many risk and protective factors at both personal and systemic levels. However, it is unclear how exactly these factors exert their influence over the experience of anxiety, which prevents effective intervention. In a systems approach, mental health problems are the events out of a system structure consisting of the person and their environment. This study aims to reveal the core structure (feedback loops) that gives rise to the experience of anxiety, through a series of participatory systems modelling workshops with 3 undergraduate students with lived experience. For ethical reasons, participants attended individual workshops before a group modelling workshop. Audio-recorded workshops were transcribed and analysed through thematic analysis. Initial results have shown common themes, e.g. need to belong, pressure to conform, while individual differences were also observed, where a same factor exerts different impacts depending on the person and the context. Causal loop diagrams were constructed based on a combination of workshop data, researcher interpretation and literature findings. So far, it has been revealed that anxiety emerges out of a structure of multiple feedback loops of coping behaviours and unintended consequences.